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I did a little shopping around, since I needed a workbench machinist’s vise for my workbench – as I plan to start doing some light metalworking (hush hush secret project) in the near future. After looking at Harbor Freight’s poor showing for vise options (mostly due to poor quality), I found a suitable 4.5 inch vise made by Record (Irwin) at Home Depot for a very affordable price. It’s a light duty workbench vise, so it’s not going to be a heavily used item. Once I got it back to the shop, I dreaded drilling holes directly in the bench and permanently mounting it – so I came up with a mount for it so I can clamp it to the work surface without permanently affixing it. I also made a front apron on it so I can use a leg vise I’m planning for in the very near future. The surface of the mount is 3/16″ hardboard over 3/4″ plywood, with a skinny wrap of cherry for edging to make it look nicer on the bench. It should come in handy. I also ended up purchasing a set of magnetic soft jaws at Lowe’s made by Bessey (a popular clamp manufacturer), so I can clamp oddly shaped items.

Recently, the Bushwood workshop got a refit. We hadn’t had much time over the past year or so after buying the house to do much, but I’ve been wanting to get back into the swing of my favorite hobby. Once the Craft Room project was completed, I was able to get back into my shop and clean it up. I refinished the workbenches with hardboard and plain old paste wax, and wrapped the edges with SYP (southern yellow pine). I tidied up and threw out old junk that wasn’t needed. I made a window. I put my tools away and made some cabinets and other things.

I was looking for a really cool (literally) summer project for the kids. So, after finding a very cool Instructable, I decided to hop on down to the local Home Depot.

The Kidwash is basically a sprinkler system, with a hose bid on one side to hook up a garden hose. It has mister nozzles to spray the kids, and makes for a really cool run-through-the-sprinkler project. You can even ride a bike under it according to the original plans.

I picked up everything on the instruction list. After getting it home, and finding out the mister nozzles wouldn’t thread, I got out my handy tap and die set and put some threads on the PVC right where each nozzle would go. Then I used some teflon tape to seal each and screwed them in. I cut all the PVC to length and glued it together. After everything was dry (about 2 hours) we turned on the hose, and had great results. The only thing I’m going to change is the height. It’s a bit short for adults. What? You think I wasn’t going to try it?

UPDATE (18July08): This past weekend I added some threaded couplers and some extra pipe to add height and “storage-ability” to the project. You can disconnect it into three pieces, and it’s now high enough for adults without having to bend down to go through.